by J. Langland
“Not that we know of,” Boggy said.
“Oh.” Tizzy stopped abruptly, looking puzzled. He twisted his lips, thinking. “What is my name? I am pretty sure I wrote it down somewhere.” He shook his head, seemingly completely distracted. “Where did I write that? Was it in my journal?”
Boggy gave him a puzzled expression. “You do not have a journal.”
Tizzy looked back at him, equally puzzled. “You mean I don’t have a personal journal where I put all my hopes, fears, dreams and ideas?”
Boggy simply shook his head.
Tizzy scrunched his eyes together and then suddenly released them, opening them wide. “You are right; that’s my friend Jenn!” He grinned. “Some really juicy stuff in there.”
“Tizzy,” Tom stated rather sternly. The little demon was going off the rails again. “Do you have any demon weed that we can use for the ascension?”
“Oh. Right.” Tizzy shook his head and seemed to get more focused. “Sure, just let me reach into my stash and get you some.”
“Everyone avert your eyes! I am pretty sure we don’t know want to see where he keeps it!” Boggy shouted. Reggie giggled and Estrebrius chuckled.
Tizzy glared at him and shook his head. He stuck out his lower right fist and opened it palm down. A small leather pouch dropped from his palm, suspended by a small drawstring wrapped around his ring finger.
“I keep it in my hand. Where do you think I keep it?” Tizzy demanded of Boggy.
“Well…” Boggy shrugged. “I’ve never known. I suspected…”
“Suspected?” Tizzy asked, squinting.
“Never mind,” Boggy replied, closing his eyes.
“How much do you need?” Tizzy asked.
“Well… we are still trying to figure that out. We were just going to use all that we had,” Tom said.
Tizzy looked shocked. “No, no, no. Particularly not with an edible. Not for a D’Orcing!”
“How much do we need?” Targh asked Tizzy.
“Well, let’s see.” Tizzy frowned, thinking. He started counting on his fingers. “One pipe bowl for the victim—ahem—applicant, one for Orcus, one for each shaman present, and then every three D’Orcs in the summoning circle can share a bowl. I, of course, will need a bowl.”
“Orcus isn’t here,” Völund stated.
“Oh. That might be a problem.” Tizzy paused, as if surprised. “Hmm, in that case, Tom will do.”
Tom closed his eyes in frustration. Was it just him, or did it seem like Tizzy was off his meds today? Or was it that he was more on them than usual?
“And why do you need a bowl? Are you planning on being in the ceremony?” Targh asked.
“No. I’m just a spectator,” Tizzy replied.
“So why do you need a bowl?” Targh asked.
“Dude, it’s his weed, man!” Reggie exclaimed.
Tizzy grinned and pointed a finger at Reggie. “Exactly! You know, another hundred thousand years and I might actually like you!” Reggie frowned at that. Tizzy stuck out his tongue.
“I don’t think you have enough in that little bag for that many bowls,” Valg noted.
Tizzy held the bag up and looked at it. It was about an inch and half in diameter. He shifted his eyes to Valg, looking at him slightly askance. “There are four kilos of demon weed in here! I should think that would be enough.”
Valg blinked, shook his head and stared pointedly at the tiny bag. “Four kegs? How...?” He trailed off, noting that Tom was shaking his head.
“Seriously, don’t ask. I am finding it increasingly easier to simply not question him,” Tom said with a sigh.
Citadel of Light: Mid Fourth Period
Teragdor, Rasmeth and Leighton were crossing one of the many large courtyards of the Citadel, returning from a refreshing lunch at one of Krinna’s cafeterias, when very loud, deep and reverberating horns began sounding. Both Teragdor and Rasmeth winced at the tremendous volume of the horns.
“What is that?” Rasmeth yelled to Leighton, who was looking quite concerned.
“They are the Horns of Gathering,” Leighton replied, shouting back.
“And those are?” Teragdor asked.
Leighton made several gestures while mouthing some chant, and suddenly the sound of the horns was suppressed enough that they could converse normally.
“They are horns that will be sounded from relay towers, ordering people in the outer communities and farms to evacuate their homes and come to the Citadel,” Leighton said.
“Does this happen very often?” Rasmeth asked.
“Never in my life, nor that of my father or grandfather. There are other horns for regional evacuations, which are far more common; every decade or so.” Leighton gestured for them to follow him as he changed the direction in which they had been heading. “Let us go see if we can find out more details. As apostles, you will surely be provided detailed information; more than I would normally get.”
Leighton continued his explanation as they headed towards a set of doors. “In order for these horns to sound, the Rangers must have determined credible threats of Unlife armies in at least three of the four cardinal directions; the fourth is typically the sea. Unlife are, by and large, not fond of the sea. Surprisingly, zombies do not float; unlike, for example, a bloated corpse.”
“Unlife armies in three directions?” Teragdor asked with concern. “So essentially surrounding us?”
“Exactly.” Leighton nodded. “Given that they had begun cleansing the moat, this was most likely not unexpected. As you know, the information from Torean’s Rangers, Krinna’s Sky Wardens and even the Shield’s Guard patrols have all been pointing to increasing Unlife activity.”
“And, as I recall from one of our briefings, no ships are making it into the harbor,” Rasmeth stated.
“Ah, yes. Forgot about that one. So then, four sides most likely, or perhaps three known and the Vicar General is simply taking no chances. That’s what we hope to find out.”
They entered back into the Citadel, literally back inside given that the Citadel was surrounding them on all sides and even below their feet. The place was insanely huge. Leighton led them down a long hall to a spiral stair-ramp on their left.
The ramp led them up and up. After passing several levels, they finally exited the ramp. As they did, a familiar voice hailed them. “Teragdor, Rasmeth!” Stevos called, hurrying down the hallway towards them. Timbly was right behind him. “When this infernal racket started I traced your illumination link to find you. Do you have any idea what is going on?”
As the two saints got within a few feet of them, they both suddenly got looks of surprise on their faces as they entered Leighton’s zone of quiet.
Timbly said, frowning, “That’s unusual!” He then took a good look at Leighton. “Ah—priest of Krinna. Of course, should have realized. We do not have this ritual; it could be quite handy. For us, it’s mainly complete silence or nothing.”
“Gentlemen, may we introduce Leighton, priest of Krinna,” Rasmeth said.
The saints both held out their hands to shake with the priest. Leighton, for his part, looked a bit taken aback to be shaking hands with actual saints, but quickly overcame it and made a quick genuflection before shaking their hands.
“Leighton explained that these are the Horns of Gathering, ordering everyone in the outer regions to evacuate to the Citadel. For them to have sounded, significant forces of darkness must have been spotted in at least three, and we suspect four directions. This is the first time in centuries, Leighton informed us,” Teragdor explained.
“We are going now to seek more information from the vicar general and others,” Rasmeth added.
“Indeed, that sounds like a very good idea.” Rasmeth nodded, gesturing for Leighton to lead on.
They followed the corridor in the opposite direction from which the saints had come until they reached a large door. Leighton opened it, ushering the others into another, much busier corridor. This corridor was filled with what app
eared to be couriers, Rangers and soldiers hustling to and fro, clearly working to get messages and orders out.
“Arch-Diocate Asferóth!” Leighton called down the hall.
Teragdor blinked and widened his eyes in surprise when a large winged human suddenly stood up straight. He had been bending over, speaking into the ear of a hearthean. Teragdor realized that this man (an Arch-Diocate of Krinna?) must be one of the legendary aetós! He had never met one before, which was why he thought them to be legendary, beings of myth. He probably needed to narrow his definition of what was mythological. He was meeting way too many extremely strange people lately; not only saints and archons, but elves that worked with orc priests of Tiernon? The world, or, more accurately, he supposed, worlds, were spinning out of control around him.
“Leighton!” The Arch-Diocate replied in a very resonant voice that could easily be heard over the din of the room, and through Leighton’s sound barrier. Actually, Teragdor realized, Leighton’s sound barrier was quite interesting in that the Arch-Diocate had heard him through the dampening barrier and over the din of the horns. Clearly an amazing little ritual. He wondered if it was possible to adapt a ritual of Krinna for Tiernon?
The aetóên cut quickly through the crowd to join them. It was only when he came through the sound barrier that he blinked in surprise, realizing there were two saints and two apostles with the priest. The Diocate shook his head and smiled before nodding to the four off-worlders.
“I see you have improved your social circle lately,” The aetóên joked, patting Leighton on the shoulder.
Leighton grinned back. “Asferóth, may I introduce you to Saint Stevos Delastros, Saint Timbly of Cossembly, the Apostle Rasmeth of Torean and the Apostle Teragdor of Tiernon.” He gestured to Teragdor’s party and then turned to them. “And gentlemen, may I introduce to you Asferóth, Arch-Diocate of Krinna for the Citadel.”
All parties nodded and shook hands, and then Leighton asked the Arch-Diocate, “What news have you?”
Asferóth shook his head. “No more than you. I was heading to the command center when I stopped to instruct Hafnerth”—he gestured back to where he had been, apparently referring to the hearthean—“to get word to the other arch-diocates of Krinna. Hopefully the skies are not fully blocked as well.”
“How would Unlife block the skies?” Teragdor asked, puzzled.
Asferóth chuckled. “In oh, so many ways. The Storm Lords themselves are fond of riding ice dragons, but there are also undead dragons, pterosaurs, harpies, and yes, even aetós; among many others.”
Stevos shook his head in wonder. “I am not sure I have ever heard of such beings in Astlan. I suppose Unlife aetós make perfect sense, but the others? Truly bizarre!”
Asferóth nodded. “Nysegard has been so long afflicted by Unlife that they’ve established their own ecosystem, or as we refer to it, a necrosystem. There are entire disciplines dedicated to understanding it; for example, necronomology studies the reasoning, logic and thought process of the Unlife, and necrotony studies the various species and taxonomy of Unlife.” The aetóên shook his head. “Yet I digress, as is my wont.” He smiled. “We need to see Grob, Rassnon and Elden.” He gestured for them to follow him.
“I know Grob Darkness Slayer, but am unfamiliar with Rassnon and Elden,” Teragdor said to Leighton.
“Rassnon is the Holy Lord Ranger of Torean upon Nysegard, and Elden No Tracks is Vicar-Warden of the Citadel. He is in charge of the Sky Wardens of Krinna at the Citadel. Ach-Vicar Admiral Avalea Stormfront, who commands Namora’s Navy upon Nysegard, is currently at sea,” Leighton replied.
Teragdor nodded, as did Rasmeth.
The party followed the arch-diocate along the corridor. The winged man proved quite adept at clearing a path in the crowded hallway. Teragdor certainly understood why; the large muscular priest was extremely intimidating, and the fact that his elegant arch-diocate robes actually matched not only his plumage, but his hair as well, made him quite visually striking.
There were two large double doors at the end of the corridor that were opening and closing rather frequently with people going in and out; Teragdor assumed this was the command center. This was quickly confirmed as guards at the door moved to open it for the arch-diocate and his party.
Inside was a very large chamber. Quite interestingly, along all of the walls were arrayed freestanding full-length mirrors on wheeled bases. Teragdor had to blink in some surprise; he was not sure he had ever seen so much glass in his life. While his initial thought was that the people in the command center were worried about vampires; he quickly realized that many of the mirrors reflected locations not inside this room. They were magic mirrors used for communication and scrying, apparently. That would certainly make sense for a command center, and it would still be useful in detecting any vampire spies.
Of course, he was not sure if there were such things as vampire spies. He had never actually encountered a vampire, or a vampyr, or any undead, for that matter. Humans in and around Murgatory tended to have the decency to stay in their graves after death, thank Tiernon, and orcs burned their dead. It was more than a little difficult to reanimate ashes.
He was pretty sure that his experience was about to change. From the sound of the horns, and the bustle and activity in this room, it appeared that an Unlife attack was imminent. Given how put out about the fact that so much heavenly horse power had shown up to rescue one Knight Rampant, he was pretty sure it would be in very bad form for them not to pitch in and help. For one thing, it was pretty clear that being surrounded by Unlife would make getting out to locate Talarius rather difficult. That would probably have to wait until after this siege was taken care of.
One should think that having a bunch of saints and archons raining down from the heavens would allow them to make pretty short work of the Unlife forces. At least, Teragdor hoped they could do that. Stevos had indicated that Sentir Fallon was not in favor of risking any more saints and archons on Nysegard. Apparently they had permanently lost quite a few. That was very disconcerting, given that saints and archons were immortal and if slain in the material worlds, should just return to the Outer Planes.
He was pretty sure that such restrictions would not apply to off-world apostles. Did they? Teragdor wasn’t sure. It went against his training, and in fact, his very nature to see Tiernon’s flocks in danger and not work to defend them. He had taken oaths, as had they all. He just wasn’t sure how up to the task he was, but he was more than ready to try.
The good news was that a mace was his preferred weapon, and all the books said that maces and blunt instruments were typically best for most undead. Squashing them seemed to work best as he recalled, skeletons had nothing to cut, just bones to smash. And one did not want to slice zombies; if you lopped a limb off, rumors had it that the limb would continue attacking you independently of the zombie. Brain smashing was the only option.
They approached a large map table in the center of the room. Teragdor was taken aback to realize that it was a three-dimensional physical map made of painted clay and wooden pieces as various elements. He had never seen such a sophisticated map. It was quite remarkable.
“What news?” Asferóth asked.
Grob looked up at Asferóth, noting the saints and apostles with a cursory glance before replying. “It appears they intend to try and surround us. We have confirmed reports in five of the eight cardinal ground directions, and the three we don’t have are spread out. We have aerial sightings above four of the five cardinal directions.”
Asferóth shook his head. “It has been a very long time since they’ve managed to muster this many forces.”
“Longer than either of us have been alive,” Aeris replied, gesturing to a uniformed and decorated alfar, whose gray hair and youthful visage suggested a Nurel Alfar, a mountain elf.
“Indeed, at least two thousand, if not twenty-five hundred years,” the elf Teragdor assumed to be Vicar Sky Warden Elden confirmed.
“Since you are still h
ere, I assume they were defeated? Do you have records of how that was accomplished?” Stevos asked.
Grob snorted. “We have some, but more in terms of oral history. Twenty to twenty-five hundred years is a long time to preserve paper without the use of magic, or alvaran materials. We do not have the resources to transcribe everything, only the most important things.”
“There are alvar who would remember, if we can find them,” Aeris stated. “However, there is no guarantee how much useful detail they’d recall. Most of the leadership of that time has perished.” He looked at the off-worlders. “On Nysegard, leadership tends to shorten one’s lifespan considerably.”
“What we do know is that only a few saints of Tiernon came to our aid,” Grob said staring at Stevos. After a long moment of uncomfortable silence, he turned to Timbly. “The same goes for Torean.”
“Krinna, Namora and Hendel’s saints showed, however,” Aeris said.
“As did the remains of Doom,” Grob stated.
Stevos blinked, the last statement giving him a more comfortable entrance point to the very awkward situation they were in. “The remnants of Doom?”
Grob nodded. “The survivors of the Doompire on the Isle of Doom.”
“We came to their aid after their volcano stopped, and they came to ours. Even after we lost the support of Lord Orcus, the people on the Isle of Doom have continued our alliance,” Elden informed them.
“It has probably been a thousand years or more since last we allied; but we may need to call on them once more. We can only hope they have survived and prospered. There has been very little communication with them for hundreds of years,” Grob noted.
Stevos grimaced and looked to Timbly. “That should not be necessary, we will be here, and we will work to bring additional resources from Tierhallon to bear.”
Grob stared into his eyes for several silent moments and finally nodded. “I shall hold you to that, Saint. We have no idea what resources are left on the Isle of Doom, if any.”
Teragdor swallowed uncomfortably and looked at Rasmeth. They had not actually gotten to the point of telling the people of the Citadel where Talarius was, nor how he got there. The saints had wanted to be circumspect, given what they knew of the strange bedfellows of Nysegard.
